It’s a tricky subject, isn’t it? Sensory sensitivity isn’t a problem in itself, it can even be an asset depending on how you use it. Sensory sensitivity becomes a problem when the mind can’t handle the amount of sensations bombarding our body every day.

Your idea makes all sense. Since sensory sensitivity isn’t the only thing occupying my stress coping mind, a good approach is to reduce stressors that I can have more control over. That is, every anxiety issue that come from within. Anxiety over relationship drama. Future plans and mispleasure with the current situation. Anxiety over not having a neat home, having a sink full of unwashed dishes because of that dang broken dishwasher and the repairman won’t come for another two weeks, and I don’t have enough energy to play with my daughter or exercise, and not having enough time to getting ready in the morning stresses the heck out of me… Etcetera. Loosening on all of these self-made requirements would surely make up more space for stress management regarding the sensory sensitivity. Less of a backpack to carry, so to say.

Another thing that I know makes my mind more stress tolerant, and therefore also more tolerant to sensory input, is exercise. Running is the most effective for me since it wakes positive memories, you get fresh air from running in the nature, and you choose your own pace depending on daymood… So, despite that I know this, I still don’t exercise on a regular basis. Why? Because of tiredness. And what would running help me with in the long run? Reducing turedness! So I’m practically just stupid. Or lazy. or both.

Dear Anita,

I’m curious! What do you get the Micro and Macro terms from? How do you use them? In my concious, something Macro (in a health and self-care concept) refers to an overall picture. Just to take an example: The will of having a healthy balance between sleep, meals, rest, intellectual and emotional stimulance, and physical exercise. And the contrary, the Micro, would then be micromanagement of how to sustain that balance through performing certain habits. But since you use the Macro term to describe the latter, how would you define your usage of the two words?

I thank you for your benign attempt on sharing information on how to solve some practical issues that I mentioned. Although, issues mentioned might just have been graphic examples on some other miscellaneous everyday issues causing unnecessary anxiety that can easily be taken away from the daily bucket of stress tolerance simply by letting go of self-created demands, thus giving more space for stress management on issues that are more biologically rooted and therefore harder to get rid of. Such as sensory overloads.

I didn’t quite follow your reasoning on the micromanagement part. Could you clarify?

Dear Anita, you talk about emotional understanding regarding “re-visiting childhood so to correct our understanding”.

How do you interpret emotional understanding as opposed to rational understanding?

How do you integrate the need of evolving emotional understanding in self-management of sensory issues?

I’m also interested in hearing your reason of grouping me with most people whose emotional understanding is lagging behind 🙂 I refer to this phrasing:  “I noticed in your writing that your rational brain is very strong, highly evolved. But as is true to most, the emotional understanding is lagging behind.” Bear in mind that it’s practically impossible to offend me. I’m interested in your honest impression. It helps me understand how people interpret my communication!

Oh.

Your response under “How do you integrate the need of evolving emotional understanding in self-management of sensory issues?” left a particularly mesmerizing mark in me. I just realized that I actually sometimes react differently on different kinds of sounds. For example, when I need to calm down, I listen to a track with heavy rain and thunder. The natural white noise makes me calm, and I can keep it on a fairly high volume – or need to do so in order to drown any distracting background noise. What is interesting is that also other loud, temporary and fairly predictable sounds – approaching ambulances, helicopters etc – affects me a lot less than sounds connected to social situations, such as the ambivalent noise of a party or a group of people laughing. One explanation might be that it’s stressful not to know when I can get out of the noisy environment or when the noise will cease, though I don’t think that is the entire explanation. Now I think of it, I believe a part of the reaction is because of sadness or dissapointment of my own inability to enjoy the situation due to the noise sensitivity.

I’ve decided to do a little experiment the next time I’ll be in a noisy and social environment, which will take place this sunday. I will try to think of the fact that I might be sad not because of the noisy environment but because of my noise sensitivity and how it inhibits my ability to sustain in social assemblies, and just enjoy the occation for as long as possible without putting any pressure on myself to “not be concerned” with the noise. I’ll try and just embrace the fact that I am who I am, with abilities and disabilities, and will be in the environment for as long as it feels comfortable. It’ll be interesting to see how that works.